David Sedaris on China, “What you’re hearing, that incessant guttural hiss, is the sound of one person, and then another, dredging up phlegm, seemingly from the depths of his or her soul.”

Mary Roach researches the strangest things. “What you would not learn is why the FDA might put a limit on insects’ heads and not other parts of their anatomy, what rat excreta tastes like and what sort of person takes a job that entails searching for insect heads in fig cookie innards.”